Jackie Ormes: The First African American Woman Cartoonist - Softcover

Nancy Goldstein became fascinated with the story of Jackie Ormes while doing research on the Patty-Jo doll. She has published a number of articles on the history of dolls in the classical world and the United States.

Visit the author's website at: www.jackieormes.com

"Imagine if the only images of black people in the thirties, forties, and fifties were those in the mainstream media! Thank you, Jackie Ormes, for telling it like it was and recording it all with consummate grace, humor, and style. Ormes paved the way for me and we traveled many of the same paths--working as a journalist, struggling to make a way in the 'man's world' of cartooning, and addressing in our cartoons a range of issues still with us, even fifty years later. The importance of this book is immeasurable. Nancy Goldstein's commitment to uncovering Jackie's story--one that was clearly endangered--and providing this comprehensive collection of her work is nothing short of magnificent."
--Barbara Brandon-Croft, creator of Where I'm Coming From

"In an assured, comic book style, Jackie Ormes drew opinionated, often sexy, and always well-dressed heroines who delighted African American audiences in the 1940s and '50s. But because her work appeared in black newspapers, Ormes flew under white America's radar. Now, thanks to Nancy Goldstein's fascinating biography, her story will delight anyone interested in comics, women, dolls, fashion, and what it was like to be a middle-class black person in mid-twentieth-century America. Jackie Ormes is a terrific find."
--Signe Wilkinson, Philadelphia Daily News, winner of the Pulitzer Prize for editorial cartooning

"[A] groundbreaking new book. More than just a biography, this monumental homage pulls together for the first time pages and pages of reproductions from Jackie Ormes, an original American cartoonist, active from the mid 1930s through the mid-'50s. . . . Goldstein's most joyous accomplishment is in having presented a portrait here of a subtle revolutionary of a bygone era."
--Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

"One of the few full-length books devoted to a cartoonist who is not a white male. . . . a resource of the best kind. . . . Goldstein's research is comprehensive."
--Women's Review of Books

"Jackie Ormes is a compact masterpiece that should serve as a model for future research on black cartoonists and on black popular culture in general."
--John Woodford, The Black Scholar: Journal of Black Studies and Research

"If one has ever enjoyed the daily newspaper comics or the Sunday afternoon funnies, then Goldstein's amply illustrated biography of Jackie Ormes, the first African-American woman cartoonist, is a must-read . . . Goldstein provides running commentary on the historical context and backdrop for much of her creative work. Goldstein also offers her own bled of close analysis and art criticism as she discusses the span of Ormes's syndicated comics."
--Marsha I. Walker, Johnson C. Walker University, Multicultural Review

"Goldstein . . . establishes a perspective from which to revalue the power of the black press, not in its conventional acts of reportage, but in serial features in which "the news" and "the editorial" are often interlocked."
--American Periodicals: A Journal of History, Criticism, and Bibliography

"Black papers are extremely rare in their original form . . . in a major coup that bespeaks Goldstein's dedication to the project, she succeeded in locating a cache of original Courier color comic sections from which to reproduce the amazing Torchy in Heartbeats strips."
--Hogan's Alley

"Clear chapters and fascinating appendices . . . illustrate the life of a woman who poked at the rules of society even as she charmed them with her talent, wit, and legendary beauty. Goldstein has unearthed a chapter of comics history that might easily have been forgotten."
--Teacher Librarian

"Jackie Ormes: the First African American Woman Cartoonist is a fascinating story about a trailblazing, multi-talented artist."
--American Studies, Earnestine Jenkins